


One

by theficisalie



Series: Night Dust [3]
Category: Bandom, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theficisalie/pseuds/theficisalie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The faded past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One

**Author's Note:**

> beta: [kazzbot](http://kazzbot.livejournal.com)

It started with a Kiss.

And it almost ended when Frank snorted and said: “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? What the fuck did you pick such a dumbass name for?”

Lucky for Frank, this girl wasn’t any kind of _almost_. She flicked her black-and-white hair out of her face and matched his smile, tooth for tooth, before shouting over the music: “You know. It’s like the saying- I’d kiss you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

“Why so long though?” Frank asked, aware of two things: that he was pushing a dangerously hot woman who was probably armed with a laser gun, and that he pushing a woman whose breasts were _enormous_.

She leaned in close enough for him to count her eyelashes individually and said, “Life’s short. I intend to last longer than everybody else.”

“Even babies?” Frank asked, trying not to stare at her chest. Girls didn’t like it when you did that. Boys didn’t either, but they were less likely to slap you upside the head for ogling their tits.

Kiss laughed, sharp and sweet, and the sound carried over the gruff vocals in the background. “You wanna get the fuck outta here, Peanut?”

“Hell yeah,” Frank said. He’d never wished that his given codename was cooler than right at this moment, but he cleared his throat and pushed past the 'if only's He tapped the bar with his knuckles and waved Cobra down. “Two drinks to go.”

The man poured the drinks, but he didn’t let Frank take them from his grasp. “Yo, Peanut, glasses don’t fucking leave the bar,” Cobra said, a wicked grin twisting his mouth.

“We’ll fucking drink ‘em here then,” Kiss said. She wrapped her hand around Frank’s on the shot glass, counted to three, and slammed the burning blue liquid back faster than lightning.

“Come on, sugar,” she said, laughing as Frank blinked himself out of his stupor. Mad Gear wailed in the background and Kiss moved so close that her lips brushed against the shell of his ear when she talked. “Kiss my battery.”

Frank could drink to that.

* * * *

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was good at...everything.

She could shoot faster than Glitter, she could slam back more than Cobra, she could drive and run, and she was a fucking animal in bed. And she was smart, so fucking smart that Frank found himself getting caught up in her words no matter when she started a conversation.

They could be back to back, Frank shooting at errant Wolves with a borrowed gun, and Kiss could look back over her shoulder at him, her smile shining in the setting sun, say “You ever wonder what the stars looked like before the pig bomb?” and shoot down the last Wolf without stopping to take a breath.

And he’d say “Yeah” because he was out of breath, and she’d take them up to the roof of the car they’d stolen in zone 2 and point at the bodies strewn below them and say, “Meet the Big Dipper” before kissing him, long and hard.

Later, she’d show him a book that Thriller pilfered off a Wolf so he could teach the pint-runners they picked up off the streets some “fuckin’ schoolin’”, and there it would be, the same picture she’d made with corpses, spelled out in glittering lights on the paper in front of him.

She was the one who taught him to shoot, to use two feet on the pedals, to let himself go and get lost in the music. She showed him how to find the back rooms in Thriller’s clubs, and how to properly use the makeshift beds the Snakes set up around the city.

She taught him how to duck and punch and how to forget the times when he didn’t do either of those.

* * * *

“They’re comin’ up on the left,” Kiss said, her voice crackling through the radio at Frank’s side.

“I fuckin’ see them,” Frank grumbled. He was on his stomach, looking at the world through the scope of the snipe-flasher Kiss had handed to him, and he’d been watching the road for the promised patrol of Dracs for fucking hours.

“Just makin’ sure,” Kiss said. “‘Member that one time you weren’t watchin? I sure as hell fuckin’ do.”

“Fuck you,” Frank grumbled. His finger on the trigger was just itching to pull. Kiss wanted him to wait though, until the Dracs were close enough for her to run up and snatch their car without alerting the desert cams to their presence.

“Counting down, Nut. In five.”

 _Four_. Frank breathed in on _three_ , and then slowly out on _two_ as he kept his target on the nasty Drac’s smirk, steadied himself and then pulled. One shot, neat and precise and the Drac in the passenger seat was dead before Frank shot its friend, just in time for Kiss to leap into the driver’s seat and keep driving like nothing had happened.

She maneuvered the car up the twisty hill just as Frank finished packing up the long flasher in its spit-shiny case, and when he hopped in the car, Kiss beamed at him and said, “Good shot, soldier.”

“Fucking _great_ shot,” Frank scoffed, leaning across the console to catch her lips in a quick kiss before he did up his seat belt. “The world better watch out, I’m fuckin’ gunning for it.”

When she laughed, he felt like he might just be doing something right.

* * * *

Frank doing something right usually ended in one of three ways: Kiss would punch him in the arm as a way of saying “Congratulations” (why she always aimed for his right bicep was beyond Frank), or they’d get a celebratory five drinks courtesy of Cobra and his smarmy grin, _or_ they’d find somewhere empty of people and fuck on every available surface.

Sometimes they did all three. Kiss liked to pick where when and what, so Frank let her decide whether she wanted him on top of her, driving into her in a way that made her gasp and writhe, or whether she wanted to be the one above him, because “The floor’s dirty and I ain’t lyin’ in it.”

She was beautiful, no matter where she was, with that predator’s glint in her eyes and the wicked twist of her mouth that lay dormant under her round cheekbones. Frank could (and frequently did) stare at her for long stretches of time, half-wishing he’d been the one to first map the landscape of her curves but being grateful that she’d let him in all the same.

* * * *

Kiss brought him to Butcher when he mentioned that he had some ideas for tattoos, nodded appreciatively at the jack-o-lantern design he’d had a scruffy kid with white hair draw up for him. He went back to Butcher later, to get a band around his arm that proclaimed “Loyalty, Honesty, Respect” in black-on-white, and an eagle on his right arm that made Kiss tilt her head in confusion when he showed her.

“You know,” he said, still buzzing from a post-needles high. “‘Cause we’re like an eagle, kinda, striking out before the whites can? Also, you always hit me there.”

“You got it for me?” she asked. “You’re gonna jinx us!”

“Nah,” Frank said. “You’re my forever baby.”

She laughed, of course, and punched him right in the eagle.

* * * *

Only, as Frank would learn, nothing was forever.

* * * *

“Let me see him,” she said.

He couldn’t see her, but the voice made him walk to the heavy door that was keeping his “room” closed. When he eked it open just enough so he could look out and feel for danger, he saw nothing but the back of Thriller’s broad shoulders. A bad sign.

“Kiss, it’s a bad idea,” Thriller said. His voice was a deep rumble so close to Frank’s face.

“Why, because you’re scared I’m gonna fucking hurt him?”

Frank ducked down as quietly as he could and tried to look through Thriller’s legs, but all he saw were jeans and sneakers.

“No, it’s ‘cause he won’t remember you, and I don’t want him to hurt you,” Thriller said. “He’s different, Kiss.”

She paused, and Frank strained to hear her breathing. “I don’t fucking care.”

Thriller mumbled “Fine” and Frank scrambled to get to the space behind the door as it swung open. The light that flickered on would have made him flinch before: now he just blinked hard and counted to five with his knees bent and his hands in front of him, ready to strike or to protect.

“I thought you said he was in here,” the girl said.

“Probably hiding behind the door,” Thriller muttered, and then he whispered, “Don’t go right up to him, okay.”

“Fuck you, I’ll do what I want,” she said.

The most beautiful girl Frank had seen in his few weeks of consciousness rounded the corner and said, “Hey.”

He thought, Oh, but then her hand rose from her side and Frank moved on reflex, using what little momentum there was behind the motion to flip her over his shoulders and on to the cement floor. She squeaked a little when he reined himself in and kept her from slamming into the ground, but he didn’t let go of her arm. His heel was lightly resting on the small of her back, right above her kidney, when she heaved out a breath that sounded like his name. His fake name, at least.

“Peanut,” Thriller said. His voice was careful, just on the edge of a warning. “Let her go.”

Frank glanced over to see if Thriller meant it, but then, Thriller had just been talking to her outside, hadn’t he? He probably knew her. Which meant that Frank probably knew her. Or at least, he was supposed to.

“Oh,” he said, and let her arm go. “Sorry.”

Thriller sighed, looking at Kiss. His face was more sad than it had been the last time he’d looked at Frank. “I told you so.”

“Sorry,” Frank repeated. Another reflex.

“That’s okay,” the woman said, as she dusted herself off. “He did warn me.”

He was supposed to remember her. He knew that from the way Thriller was standing, and from the way she looked when her eyes fell on his arms.

“Oh shit,” she breathed. “That’s. That’s a lot of tattoos. More than you had last time I saw you.”

Frank folded his arms across his chest and felt Thriller leave the room more than he saw it. “I guess.”

“I was out at the beaches sniping nitros,” she said. “When you got back. They said you were- when I got back in range- that you’d been back for a month. I didn’t really believe them.”

Frank wished the room was dark again. His back was still aching where Butcher had finished inking a pair of guns a few hours ago, and he’d been plagued by vivid nightmares all week long, of fires and burning eyes. “Yeah.” White lights made his stomach ache now.

She paused, clearly trying to search his eyes. It made him uncomfortable, the way most things did now. The feeling of a gun in his hand, familiar but not quite remembered. “You really don’t remember me, then,” she said, finally. He’d heard it enough times as a question: hearing it as a statement didn’t make it any less painful.

“Sorry,” he said, looking down at his bare feet. He didn’t wear shoes if he didn’t have to, they made his feet feel closed in.

“Fuck,” she swore, her voice thick. “I didn’t think I’d have to introduce myself to you again.”

“Sorry.”

She grimaced at him. “And we can’t use real names in case--”

“I’m a sleeper cell,” Frank said. Thriller had explained their name policy to him, and had added, with a wince, the addendum they’d been forced to create in his honour. “Yeah.”

"Well, listen," she said, smiling despite the sadness in her eyes. "It's not your fault. I'm Kiss Kiss Bang Bang."

"Long name," he said.

She snorted, and the way she rested her hand on her gun didn't even trigger his Emergency Disarmament Protocol reflexes. "You said that last time too."

Frank smiled politely. "And it was."

"Huh?" she asked, tearing her eyes from where they had been fixated on the violent red ink on his elbow.

"My fault," he said. "Getting caught. At least, that's what they tell me."

"Oh, shit," she muttered. "Listen, that's not, that isn’t true, BLI --"

Frank shrugged, and the simple motion of his shoulders made her stop talking. “It isn’t anyone else’s fault.”

“Let’s not, okay,” she said, clearly trying to keep a brave face in front of the little broken boy. “Don’t beat yourself up, they clearly did that for you. Instead, how about I buy you a drink and you tell me about your new art?”

“Oh,” he said. He thought about the swallows and the rose on his elbow and the woman crying blood on his arm and wondered why he wanted so badly to tell her about them when he hadn’t even let Butcher know any of their stories though he’d sat for hours under the pushing needles. “Yes. I’d like that.”

“Me too,” she said, and her smile was as bright as the sun.

* * * *

She took him to a rooftop that stretched above Battery City’s lower apartment buildings to count the stars. Frank didn’t get it, but it seemed important to her. Maybe it was something they used to do together.

“I count 50,” she said, smile bright in the dark night. He could see the sky reflecting in her eyes. “What’d you get to?”

Frank glanced away from her, up to the sky that was full of pollution and clouds. “Uh,” he said, brain scrambling to think of numbers. What could he say that would make it seem like he understood? Or remembered?

Her face fell when he took too long to answer, and he sat up. The soles of the boots Kiss had brought him had a fascinating tread that he traced with his index finger. “I guess I just don’t understand,” he said, finally. “We’re never going to see any. Not from here.” Maybe if they went out to the desert, but Thriller had told him that he shouldn’t go out to the zones until he could remember everything.

“Yeah, it was stupid, I guess,” she muttered. “You’re not supposed to see any, you just...you imagine what the sky looks like behind all that grey crap up there. Gives you hope that there’s something more than what the City has to sell.”

He turned to face her, but she already was looking back up at the sky, with stars in her eyes.

* * * *

“Frank,” he whispered to her. They’d been hunkered down, waiting for the Dracs to clear the building they’d been in for over a half hour. Things had been going well until the first soldier had marched in, unannounced, and they’d had to dive for cover before it could spot them.

Frank was just opening and closing his empty hands at his sides: Thriller had explained to him that yes, they were wary that he might be sleeper cell, but also that their guns were coded to their specific DNAs, which was why they couldn’t shoot any of the Drac guns they picked up and also why he couldn’t shoot any of theirs. He wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but the time it took to test out a flasher was the time it took for a Drac or a Crow to take him out, so the venture wasn’t really worth his while.

“What’d you say?” she asked, her voice low. Her finger was on the trigger of her orange gun, and her eyes were distracted. Thinking about how many soldiers she could take down before they got to her.

Frank pushed his greasy hair back past his ears so he could see her better. “Frank,” he repeated. “It’s my name.”

Something changed in her posture even as her face stayed the same, her expression careful. “What?”

Frank shrugged. “I figure, you know. If we’re gonna die today, I want someone to know my name. I’ve got, what. A hundred people who know a name that isn’t mine, and a mom and grandparents who know the other one. What’s one more?”

“Fuck,” she breathed. “Frank.”

Frank smiled and thought about the eagle on his arm. She’d told him that mark was for her, even if he couldn’t recall why. “Short and sweet, huh?”

“Yeah, fuck. Shit. You aren’t gonna die, Nut, uh. Frank.”

Frank leaned back against the crate they were hiding behind and looked down at his dirty hands. “Sure.”

“Thriller’s coming, he’ll be here in a minute, and then we’re gettin’ the hell out, okay?” She glanced over the crate again, all nerves and nothing less than perfect.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Frank asked, when she turned back to him.

“Another one?” she asked, forehead creasing in concern.

Frank nodded and leaned closer to her. He felt remarkably calm considering the circumstances they were in. It was almost making him giddy as he looked into her bright eyes. “I already died once.”

Her expression was understandably confused, and she gave him one of her sweeter smiles, the one that he knew she reserved for people she thought might be batshit insane. "Frank --"

"No," he said, holding up one hand. "I know it sounds crazy and that Thriller told you I just got wiped, but they fucking killed me in there, Kiss."

"But you're here," she said, like he was five.

"Yeah," he said.

"How..." she stopped herself with a grimace. "Look, that isn't possible. How could you possibly know that?"

He nodded, held up a finger. "Okay. You know the feeling you get when your heart stops pumping for a few hours and then against all reason it starts working again?"

She shook her head and he smiled. "It was like that."

"Fuck me," she muttered, searching his eyes. "You really...believe that. They brainwashed you, Frankie. You don't remember shit about your own _life_."

"Brain reset," he said.

"You didn't _die_ \--"

"They shot me in the _head_ , Kiss,” he said, a bit too loudly.

“Shit,” she muttered, charging her flasher when the sounds of Dracs interested in a commotion carried over their crate. She looked at him and snorted. “Just like the old times. ‘Cept you’re unarmed.”

“Never unarmed,” Frank muttered, patting the guns he’d had Butcher tattoo on his lower back. “I’d like to see one of these pansy-ass motherfuckers take me down.”

“Fuck yes,” Kiss said, grinning now. “On five, then.”

Frank ducked around to the left when Kiss moved to the right. The Drac sniffing around the corner had enough time to see him and raise its gun before he grabbed its head and twisted, the snap of bone under his fingers just on this edge of _too familiar_. It was way too easy at this angle, and it was too easy to wallop the Drac standing guard in the temple with the first one’s gun. From there, he tried not to think so hard about what he was doing: an elbow to the gut here, a kick to a knee there.

It felt like they were winning, and Frank saw Thriller come through the door of the warehouse, guns blazing, and he turned to say something of the effect to Kiss when he saw a blast of light trace a path right in front of his nose. He stumbled in Kiss’s direction, momentarily blinded, and when his vision cleared, all he could see was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, on the ground, with a spot of red blooming on the front of her once-white shirt.

He heard someone yell “No”, and belatedly realized it had been him as he skidded to his knees at her side.

She looked surprised, like she hadn’t anticipated the blast.

“Fuck,” Frank said, reaching down to her. He pushed her hair behind her ear and pulled her close to him so her head was cradled in the crook of his left arm. He didn’t even think about the agents behind him: if they killed him, he’d just come back. He wasn’t so sure if she would, too. “Hey, hey, Kiss.”

“F-frank,” she said, coughing wet and deep.

“No,” he said. “It’s okay. You’ll make it, huh? Thriller’s here, everyone’s here, we’re gonna take care of you.”

She laughed, and Frank gave in to the urge he’d been feeling since he’d first seen her: he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.

Light flashed behind his eyes, and for a moment he thought someone had shot him, but it was just Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, running through his head like she’d been there all along. Her in bed, strong skin contrasting against white sheets; her smile in a car somewhere; her hands in his.

“Kiss,” he said, and he tasted blood when he pulled away from her. “Kiss, I remember.”

Her eyes smiled. “You ‘member me, huh.”

“Yeah, I fucking do, you’re the best lay I ever had,” he said, running his thumb over her eyebrow.

“You’re not bad, Frankie,” she whispered. “No matter what they say. And hey, call me Jamia.”

“Jamia,” he said, like she’d said his name so few minutes ago. It felt like hours they’d been sitting on the ground, but it probably hadn’t been more than a few seconds.

“Peanut,” someone said, and it was Thriller, his voice full of concern. “Everything okay?”

“No, fuck,” Frank said, turning a fraction. “Kiss needs help, they shot her, they, they shot her.”

“Missed my heart,” Jamia said, and when Frank looked back at her, her eyes were drifting shut. “But that’s okay, ‘cause you had it all along.”

“No, no,” he said. “No, Kiss. Jamia. Come...come back.” Another piece of his life had just fit itself in place and now he was going to lose it? That wasn’t fucking _fair_. “Come on, just hang in there, they’ll fix you up. You can’t _leave_. Not like this. You plan on outliving the rest of us, remember? Come on, Jamia.”

“You’re sweet,” she rasped, and red bubbled out the corner of her mouth and onto his shirt. “That’s the Frankie I remember.”

“Come on, come _on_ ,” he said, trying to keep the life in her just by holding her close.

“One last kiss,” she said, her smile weak at the edges. “For the road.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” he whispered.

“Not goin’ far,” she said. “Gonna see you again. Close your eyes and I’m there.”

Frank was dimly aware of the voices shouting for help behind him (count: 4), just as he was aware of the Draculoid bodies on the floor of the warehouse (count: 26) and of the tears sliding down his face (count: 2). “Fuck you,” he whispered.

Jamia smiled for the last time.

And so, just like it had started, it ended.

With a kiss.

(And a Bang.)


End file.
